I was having an issue with a Bally “Supersonic” pinball machine randomly resetting/rebooting. The problem was traced to irregular power coming off the driver board. In this video series I go over a necessary process to bring these old boards back “up to spec” as well as a few improvements that make the game overall more reliable.
In taking an initial look at the latest game I picked up, this Bally “Mystic”, as always my main concern is checking to make sure there’s no significant battery damage on the game. What’s interesting is when I looked at the game, there was no battery on the MPU board. The owners insisted the game saved the high scores, but I didn’t see how? Was there a battery on the underside of the board? I had to pull the MPU out to see.
What I saw was a board that someone had repaired, that had leaking batteries on it. They simply pulled the board and replaced a few damaged components and did not put a battery back in. But they created another issue by not fully-cleaning the board, and as a result, the damage from the leaking battery, even though it was long gone, continued…
Lately, I’ve been developing a big appreciation for the 80s-era Bally games. As a kid I remember them kicking my ass and having unique and interesting rulesets that set them far apart from the Gottliebs and Sterns of the day, so when the chance to pick up a “Mystic” came up, I jumped at it, and drove about three hours to get this game.
Little did I know how special the game would end up being…
As many of you know, one of the biggest problems with pinball machines and repairing them is dealing with leaky batteries on solid state machines, that cause corrosion and all sorts of damage. I’m going to go over how you can completely eliminate this from happening by replacing old-style rechargeable batteries with a high-tech “memory capacitor” that will last longer and not have the same problems that batteries do.
Now lets test the new memory capacitor in the game:
Here’s source info on the caps:
Category:
1.5f 5.5f “super capacitors” at Mouser Electronics.
Specific item I used:
You can also get these from Great Plains:
http://www.greatplainselectronics.com/Category-67.asp
Product ID: CER-1.5F-5V
Capacitor, Radial Electroltyic, 1.5F, 5V
Capacitor, 1.5F, 5V, 85C, Radial Electrolytic
Manufacturer: Panasonic
Manufacturer Part Number: EECF5R5U155
Diameter: 21.5mm, Height: 8mm, Lead Spacing: 5
Price: $5
One of the biggest problems with vintage solid-state pinball games is damage to the circuit boards from leaking batteries. Here I show you how to install a remote battery pack so the batteries are away from the sensitive circuit boards, eliminating the possibility of them leaking electrolyte and causing corrosion and other damage to the pinball machine’s electronics.
This type of remote battery pack will work with almost all major pinball systems. The main thing to note is some games by default used rechargeable batteries (many Gottlieb and Bally systems) while others used non-rechargeables (WPC). If you use a remote battery pack on games that by default used rechargeable batteries, install a blocking diode in the path of the battery pack to keep the batteries from having power supplied back to them. Doing this with non-rechargeable batteries can result in bad things like batteries exploding.
Installing it in the game..
and lets test it..
As work continues on the Mr. and Mrs. Pac Man pinball game, I am finally ready to fire up a game and see how it plays so far…
There’s still work to do. There are some audio problems and I have to special-order these odd light fixtures that work in the center of the game, the “Pac Lite Matrix” as they call it. As long as some of those lights are out, it’s very difficult to play that part of the game. Stay tuned!
In this latest episode I deal with a sound problem on our Mr & Mrs Pac Man pinball machine. The sound and speech is intermittent and low in volume.
When dealing with any game that is 30 or more years old, you can bet that the capacitors are suspect. These electronic components are known to go bad over time, since they have liquid inside that can dry up, or leak out. It’s relatively easy to acquire and replace the components provided you have the right tools, and then you insure your game board will ideally last another 30 years.
In the video one thing to note is you aren’t always limited to having to find the exact same value/model capacitor. You can replace a capacitor with a lower voltage rating with one of a higher voltage rating. (i.e. replace a 25v cap with a 50v) But you want to make sure the capacitance value (in farads or microfarads) remains the same. You can also replace an axial cap (one with the leads coming out of each end) with a radial cap (with both leads coming out from just one end) as long as you get the polarity properly oriented. Make sure you note that markings usually point to the negative lead, while an indentation on one side of a capacitor will mark the positive lead.
After replacing the caps, we still have some flakyness with the speech portion of the board. I’ve got some replacement pots on order – when they come in I will check on the board traces and solder joints and probably replace that pot… stay tuned and thanks for following the saga!